Heroin
by za
Summary: Fifth vignette up. On the life of a junkie and seduction of a fix.
1. Real Wild Child

Title: Real Wild Child

Author: mao

Disclaimer: Velvet Goldmine belongs to Michael Stipe, Todd Haynes, and a lot of other people, most namely not me. The title for this comes from Iggy Pop and the Stooges' song of the same name, as is the clip at the beginning. I'm just a poor college student not trying to make any money from this, and if you sue me, all you'll get is some soda bottles.

Author's Notes: I'm re-vamping this whole thing. This is now under the title 'Heroin,' and it's just a collection of little things I've written about Curt and his drug addiction that don't fit into a whole sort of 'fic' format. So...yeah. Enjoy.

Warnings: Graphic drug use, sexual content.

***

**gonna meet all my friends**

**gonna have myself a ball**

**in a world gone crazy**

**everything seems hazy**

**I'm a real wild one**

1969

He sits at the table, takes a drag off the end of his cigarette. He stamps it out, crushing the burning embers into nonexistence in the ashtray. With a practiced movement, he tlifts a syringe from among the beer bottles that litter the table, pushes the plunger into place, against the end of the syringe.

He lifts a beer to his lips, swigs, then sets the empty bottle down. Lights a small candle that sits on the table with a flick of his thumb. Around him, the din of the room is heightened by the arrival of a blonde stripper in a cowboy outfit. He watches her dimly, through the smoke of twenty-some lit cigarettes and more than a few joints. The coke from earlier is wearing off, and it's time for a fix in the other direction.

He turns away from the stripper, from the roomful of bandmates and adoring fans who have ceased to realize that he exists. The girl from last night - small, British with mousy-colored hair and a delicate accent - is cheering the stripper on with all the others there.

He takes the spoon and the powder and, upon a whim, pulls out a dollar bill. Scrapes the powder into a neat line with the edge of the spoon, then rolls the dollar bill into a small tube. Lowering his head, he inserts the tube in his right nostril, the snorts up the white line of heroin, sending the tiny crystals straight to his brain. In a moment, he'll be feeling better, and that should tide him over while he heats the rest of it to injection liquidity.

He swipes the back of his hand roughly below his nose, snorting at the sudden, slight pain of the powder going where it really shouldn't. His eyes water for a moment, and the inside of his nose is painful, then suddenly begins to compensate the dryness with dampness.

He drops the dollar bill to the dirty table-top as smack reaches his brain. For a moment, there's brief flicker of ecstasy, of otherworldly contentment and relaxation. He tilts his head back against his shoulders, feeling for a moment that hole in his chest filled by the heat, the incredible warmth of the drug.

And then it's relaxed, like the tide going back out to sea. Leaving him alone on the beach.

And he wants more.

He wants it so baldy he is quivering as he contintinues, and must press his palms into the table to steady his hands. He pauses, eyes closed, hands outstretched and fingers spread, pressing his hands into the table. Then it's passed, and he has recovered from the wanting - the beast that pushes him onward has recessed back into its cave.

He takes the bent spoon and drops powder into it, licking what's left on his fingers off quickly, in a desperate movement. He can do this quickly, he knows that. He just can't do it fast enough to satisfy himself. He has to go faster, hurry hurry get the smack and fill the plunger do it do it, please hurry, please rush-

He forces his hands to slow down. He has no water, so he drips some beer into the spoon, mixes the concoction with the tip of the syringe. He holds the bowl of the spoon over the candle, slowly simmering out the solidity of the powder, slowly dissolving it into a clear orange liquid that he can send straight to his brain.

When it's completely liquid, he lowers the spoon to the table as slowly as he can force himself to. He doesn't want to spill a drop - last time he did that, he found himself licking the table in desparation, trying to get it out of the cracks, praying he could have it back. But he's more careful this time, and the mission to set the spoon down is successful.

He forces his hands to slow down even more. He tells himself that this is the price he has to pay for the next six hours of divine ecstasy, a punishment for his habit. He lifts the syringe and gazes at it for a single, slow minute. The needle is his favorite part. The silver of it, the way it glitters in the dim light of the party. He lowers it to the spoon, dips the point into the bowl, and slowly - achingly slowly, so slowly it makes his teeth chatter and his gums hurt and his brain to scream at him to hurry up again - pulls back the plunger, filling the syringe cavity with the nectar.

When's completed that, he pauses, glances over across the room. He feels a moment of surprise as he sees the crowd, then remembers that they had been there earlier. The stripper is nude now, giving his guitarist a lap dance. He knows the heroin is hitting him because he remembers now seeing her come in, seeing the party move across the room, good-natured on beer and gin and pot and coke. He knows that when he looks away, he'll forget them again, will no longer hear the thumping beat of the music or the cheers of the crowd, so he focuses on this moment, as if it will remind him later of what was happening. 

As if none of this will be blacked out later.

Then he turns back to the task at hand, the remembered plot to have his own private party. He grins slowly, a feral expression, unaware of his face changing on its own. He wishes there was someone there he felt as though he could like - someone he would enjoy shooting up with, someone who could push the plunger down for him. Better than sex, really. More intimate, too.

But for now, he knows he'll have to do it himself.

He takes the rubber strip, wraps it around his left bicep.He pulls it tight, wedging the loose end between his arm and his chest. He picks up the needle, picks up his world.

He gazes one more time at the perfect end of the needle, at the pricking end, where his universe begins. He lowers it slowly to his arm, clenches a fist with his left arm, and picks a vein he hasn't used too many times yet.

He breaks the skin quickly, waits a moment. He loves this moment of torture. He loves making it take as long as possible, loves holding it out, seeing how long he can last - one minute, two? - before punching down the plunger and drowning in the sweet seas of junk. How many terrible things he can think of that will vanish the moment the plunger descends and the needle pushes the heroin into his vein. How many thoughts can he have before he's too smacked out to think?

And then he pushes it down.


	2. Coping

Title: Coping

Author: mao 

Disclaimer: Velvet Goldmine belongs to Michael Stipe, Todd Haynes, and a lot of other people, most namely not me. The lyrics at the beginning come from an ABBA song, though unfortunately, I don't know which one. Ooops. I know it's the one I was listening to when I wrote this - track 10 on their Gold CD. I'm just a poor teenager not trying to make any money from this, and if you sue me, all you'll get is some soda bottles. 

Author's Notes: Just Curt coping with the loss of Brian, and the way their relationship ended. 

Warnings: Graphic drug use, language. 

Dedication: written for Jamie.

***

**all those happy days, **

**they seem so hard to find.**

**what happened to our love?**

**I wish I understood.**

**when you're gone,**

**how can I even try to go on?**

1975 - Death of Glitter

I pull back the plunger slowly, letting just the tinest amount of blood into the chamber. Most of the heroin's already on its crash course with my brain, but I force the plunger down and the rush flies into my head. It's a good-sized hit, but as long as I've been at the smack, it doesn't do too much besides calm me, seal off my nerves as if with wax. I'd need more to really be high. I don't want to be gone, just happy. 

The line of coke is already set out for me on the table, neatly straightened, with no stray grains wandering out onto the rest of the black enamel. I take the straw, place it up my nose, and zipper up it in one quick motion, sucking all the coke into my nostril. It's easy...habit really, after being with Brian. 

I rock my head back quickly, put one hand under my nose and snort again, making sure it's all up there. I can feel it hit my brain, taking its time mingling with the beer and the smack already up there. 

I'm up and down at the same time. I haven't done this since...oh, well, a couple years ago, and this is a toned down version anyway. I'd do a huge amount of junk, a few lines of blow, and then half a set. Once that was through, I'd pack some speed or acid in there, just for good measure, and get totally fucked up again. If I tried to do that now, it'd kill me...I've been almost clean for so long now, my body would just tell me, "That's it Curt, I'm too fucked," and I'd kick the bucket. I'm depressed, but I'm not ready to die yet.

I haven't done this since I met him, but I think I'm well-justified now. It'll be the last time, anyway. I need to be on the ball tonight - Jack and I were fine in the studio, but it gets harder and harder on tour. He's never touched me - perhaps if we were screwing it would be easier. I'd have a recourse then, instead of this crash course I know I'm on.

But every night, someone's got something - and it's not like my fans are the Pot And Shrooms Only crowd. They've got acid, blow, junk, speed, angeldust...everything, man. Good shit, too. Stuff I woulda paid good money for back in Michigan, and they just want to fucking give it to me because of who I am now.

And who am I?

Curt fuckin' Wild. 

Curt Andrew Woodson is gone. I remember standing up at church with my parents, taking the sacrament, the body of fucking Jesus. Ten, eleven years old, and wondering what part of him I was eating. A toe, maybe a part of his arm or even...

While I was thinking that, my brother would turn, and wink at me. 

Stop stop stop my brain I can't think like that now I need to focus. I'm about to go onstage. It's a short set, and I have to be there for it, not just there, singing the words, but THERE, riding on the music, cresting on the bass lines and writhing to the drums. 

If this is the last time, to do all this shit before going onstage, I have to make it count. 

I take a beer from the cooler, pop the top off with the edge of the table and chug it, taking half of it into my body at once before stopping and wiping the icy coolness across my forehead.

I go across the room to the closet, pull out the silver pants. Brian loved these pants - brought them home one day with a grin on his face like I'd never seen before. He pulled them out of the bag with a flourish and held them up to me, for examination.

"Nice," I told him. "I can't wait to see you in them."

"You won't," he told me. "They're for you."

He never saw me in them. The shit hit the fan before I ever wore them.

But I'll wear them tonight, as a last testimonial. 

I pull off my shirt, then fluff out my hair a bit. Yeah, I'm a dandy. It's a secret, though. Then I pull off my pants, loose cotton trousers, and toss them on the floor. I take off the undrwear too, and toss them into a dirty clothes hamper. I pull the leather pants onto my skin, the silver clinging to me like paint, cool on my skin, though I know for a fact that they'll heat up later.

The belt, thin and beaten metal, flowery - Mandy gave it to me for Christmas last year. We got together for a sort of Lonely Hearts Club celebration, and she gave it to me. 

"It made me think of you," she said, weeping with wine and exhaustion, as she handed me the box.

I fasten the clasp on the belt, then turn to look into the mirror. I look beautiful, though if I were sober I'd never say that about myself. I take another swig of beer, then step closer to the mirror. 

Something's missing.

I pick up the eyeliner, lean forward, and begin drawing on my eyelids.

After all, if I'm going to regress to 1972, I'm going to do it fuckin' right.


	3. Cheating

Title: Cheating

Author: mao 

Disclaimer: Velvet Goldmine characters, likenesses, plotlines, etc. belong to Todd Haynes, Michael Stipe, etc. The lyrics at the beginning belong to the divine Velvet Underground and their song "Heroin." In other words, I am poor and am not trying to make any cash off this. Please don't sue me.

Author's Notes: This just popped out. It's not much and it's not really any good either, so...well, yeah. But it needed to be said. 

Warnings: Reasonably graphic drug usage, language.

***

**heroin, be the death of me**

**heroin, if's my wife and it's my life.**

**because when the smack begins to flow**

**I really don't care anymore**

1973

I shouldn't be upset about this. Although it feels like he's cheating on me, I need to remember that he isn't. Not really, in the strict I'm For Him And He's For Me monogamous way. And I mean, it's with his wife, for Christ's sake. 

I shouldn't be upset about this.

But I am. 

Jesus Rollerskatin' Christ, I'm so fuckin' pissed about it. I can barely see straight, although that may be because of the drink in my hand and the fact that I can't remember if it's number six or seven. 

He came to tell me he was going to Mandy's room, which is something he never bothers to tell me. Uusally, when he's borrowing a skirt or outfit or makeup or whatever, he just goes and returns with the new item in his hand. He never comes in, as he did, and looks at me with eyes like a puppy about to be kicked. 

"I'm going to Mandy's room tonight," he told me softly, looking me in the eyes. Despite the soft voice and subservient manner, I knew he was hardly worried about what I might say, or how I might feel. He just didn't want me to be angry with him.

I just looked at him, and then he was gone, down the hall to the left, to a room done in pale pinks and ivory, with roses in every nook and cranny, spreading faint perfume that is probably, at this moment, being displaced with the muskier scent of her and the light vanilla breeze that is him. 

I shouldn't be upset about this because she's his wife. I also shouldn't be upset because after he left, I went to my bag and pulled out my little baggie of gear. I haven't touched it in two months, since he spent the night with Mandy last.

He's gone back to his first love, and so I'm doing the same. 

If he's cheating, I guess I am too. I pulled out the little bag and tipped a little china white into the spoon and cooked up a quick shot. My hands were shaking - with hurt, with rage - so hard I almost couldn't do it right. 

But years of practice, if you could call it that, took over, and soon I was moving in long-practiced motions, filling the syringe and screwing the needle back on the end. Carefully removing my belt, wrapping it around my bicep, tapping the vein and squeezing a fist. The sudden, sharp pain of slipping the needle into my vein, drawing a little blood into the chamber, and the momentary ache that takes ages - tempting myself to drop the plunger. And then doing it, and the sudden feeling of relief, followed by the sensation of relaxation. 

So now I'm Comfortably Numb, if you'll pardon the reference, and rather drunk, but I'm still pissed. I feel like such a fucking mug for thinking it wouldn't happen again or something - they are fucking married, after all. 

But we're even now. 

I know he'll come back tomorrow and neither of us will mention it. He'll assume I spent the night drunk - though not high - and went to bed alone. He wouldn't guess I went to sleep with Lady Heroin and how...mmm, she makes me feel good.

Better than he ever makes me feel, I sometimes think. He's been good to me, but we're growing farther and farther apart. 

Not to mention that I'm cheating on him and he's cheating on me. 

Fuck it. I don't need him and his bullshit drama anyway. Not now that I've made this most intelligent decision to get back on heroin. He's been drifting away into Maxwell Demon's fucking lair anyway. I don't need to be a part of it. 


	4. Pop the Cherry

Title: Pop the Cherry

Author: mao

Disclaimer: Velvet Goldmine characters, likenesses, and plotlines belong to Todd Haynes, Michael Stipe, and the rest of those crazy kids. The lyrics belong to Placebo's song, "My Sweet Prince." I'm making no money off this (at least, not that I know of), nor do I get (or claim) credit for any of that stuff. Suing me will accomplish nothing. So there. :P

Author's Notes: The woman in this chapter is a figment of my own imagination, yes. Don't consider this a self-inclusion; she's just a plot device. She was vaguely inspired by a girl I once knew who died from an overdose.

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of drug use and semi-graphic sex. Brief language, vague mention of incest. 

***

**me and the dragon can chase all the pain away**

**so before I end my day remember**

**my sweet prince you are the one**

1967

It's a night like any other - another shoddy, wild performance on a rickety stage, with another crowd, composed of the usual people, pressed up against it, making it bend and bow ever so slightly. Another line of blow, another couple of beers, another hit of acid to see him through the show, to help keep him up, popping around the stage like he's nuts - which, he thinks with a laugh and a sip of beer - he really is.

His nineteenth birthday came and went a couple weeks ago, and he's going on a year and eight months since he left his parents' house and the watchful eyes and groping hands of his older brother. He hasn't looked back; he loved them all once, but he feels freer in the world, though he's only gone as far as Detroit. At least, for now. Either way, Ann Arbor feels light years away.

And for now, there's groupies by the dozen. Lanky girls with thin hair and skinny smiles that don't quite reach their eyes, in tight clothes that don't quite fit correctly. They all want a piece of him; he could feel their yearning from the stage, as he hopped about, his cock bouncing against his naked thigh, flipping them off and touching himself to get them to yell. When he'd launched himself into the crowd, pants firmly re-secured to his hips, the boys and girls rejected by Michigan's dying culture had held him up, proud that one of their own was speaking for them, even in such graphic terms. 

Now the girls - their eyes hollow and lusting from dark caverns, going after him, after the boys in the band, their trashy makeup smeared with dancing, their jeans so tight he can see the lines of their panties. He's fucked some of them - most of them, actually - before, and really has no interest in doing it again.

But there's someone new tonight, he realizes as he glances through the crowd of groupies. Long, dark hair falls over her thin shoulders, and her face is pale and peaked behind it. Her eyes, light blue, seem too light from behind the curtain of her lashes, and she's dressed like the others. She carries a bag - a hideous, macrame hippie-type thing - over one shoulder, clutching it as close as a baby. 

It takes him a few minutes to figure out that what bothers him is that she moves differently. He sits on the tired couch, girls all around, watching her slowly, trying to figure her out. She's been approached by the drummer, who's hitting on her, but she seems indifferent to him. On the contrary, she keeps glancing lazily over at Curt, her head moving slowly to the music, her body seeming to dance even as she stands there. 

Eventually, she manages to escape, leaving one of her friends behind with the drummer, and, with a glance to him, heads for one of the doors. As if in another world, he follows her, extracting himself cautiously from the girls on either side of him, and follows her into one of the narrow bedrooms of the house. 

She's seated on the bed in the dim light, waiting for him. He locks the door, sits down next to her, and realizes that her pupils are growing steadily bigger and bigger; her eyes look like marbles, with just the thinnest layer of faint blue around the edges of them. 

"Have you ever chased the dragon?" She asks him quietly, her eyes meeting his in their glassy glory, her voice soft like cat's feet; the words dart out quickly, softly, then retreat into the blackness around them. He shakes his head, not taking his eyes from hers'. But she doesn't come back to it. Instead, she tells him, "I saw you tonight. You seem lost," and she reaches out, one of her hands as pale as moonlight brushing the dishwater blond of his hair back behind his ear. "Who are you, Curt?"

At first glance it's a simple question, but even a second later, he realizes he has no good answer for her; he is no more aware of who he is than he is aware of what will happen to him next week. Softly, so softly he almost can't hear her, she murmers, leaning her forehead against his, "Do you want to find out?"

He wants the magic she has; that's for damn sure. He was caught on her the moment she walked in, but the spot where her forehead burns against his own is too warm for this planet, and he wants to join her in space. He remembers the last time he felt something so hot on his head - electromagnetic convulsive therapy and two metal pieces against the sides of his head; trying not to like boys and long conversations with God about why he was the way he was.

"Yes," he finds himself whispering, trying to match her tone, and she nods, suddenly decisive, and begins digging into her bag. She makes the motions slow, ritualized and simple, sacred as a tea ceremony. She pulls out a bag of white powder, some of which she empties into the bowl of a bizarrely-altered spoon. She pours a little water into it, and holds it over a candle he's only just noticed.

As it simmers, she murmers some more. "It'll be painful," she tells him.

"I can handle it," he says. 

As she pulls out the syringe and fills it, screws the needle on the end, she says, "It'll involve more sacrifice than you know."

"I can do it," he tells her, as she takes his bare arm in her hands, loops her belt around the muscle and pulls it tight. She squirts a little out the end of the needle, then licks it carefully. 

As she taps the vein with her hand - "You'll be one with God, and then you'll be alone." She meets his eyes, syringe poised over his vein. He takes in a deep breath, scared and thrilled, his blood pumping so hard he can barely think.

"Do it," he tells her softly. "I've been there before."

She slips the needle in and he winces, but then the plunger is down and he's suddenly, unexpectedly, above the moon. It happens faster than he ever imagined, easier - just a simple push of a plunger - and he's soaring away on silver wings, the wind warm on his face and the beating of the planet's own heart the only sound around him.

And then he's back with her, but her skin is more luminous, her eyes huge, beautiful marbles. She smiles at him as he looks at her in wonder, examines cautiously the silk of her dark hair, the alabaster of her skin, all with slow, curious hands. She gently removes the belt from his arm, puts the needle and the spoon and the little bag of white powder away in her bag, and he reaches out, feeling her cheek.

It's amazing; he can feel the beat of her heart through the thrumming of her blood below the skin. The skin is soft as ancient paper, and the shadows under her eyes and on the far side of her nose seem as deep and cavernous as those on the moon. Her cheekbones seem sharp enough to cut, and he's careful to touch them slowly, to as not to hurt himself on the razor edge of them. Her lips, hot, force out warm air between their pillows, and he pauses with his fingers on them, enjoying the intense feeling of her breath hot on his hand. 

Then she giggles, suddenly girlish. "Popped your cherry." Her skinny shoulders buckle inward, and he finds himself laughing with her. Then she's serious again, almost scientific if not for the great glass of her own eyes. "How is it?" 

He can't answer. Instead, he leans forward, moving his hand out of the way, and kisses her, tentatively, on the lips. She responds, molding her mouth to fit his, caressing his lips with her tongue, forcing them open, forcing herself inside and around him.

Next thing he knows, they're fucking, naked, their flesh hot against one anothers'. He's inside her, but she's wrapped around him like a glove, and every time she touches him he feels as if he might explode. At his climax, he shudders, collapsing into tears. She climbs off him, wraps her porcelain arms around him, and murmers into his ear.

When he awakes in the morning, the sun is too bright, the day too horrifically cheerful to even contemplate being a part of. He feels as if something inside him is missing, some part of him that has been cut out like a kidney or a lung; something he could live without but would rather not. His teeth ache and his stomach wants to kill him, revolting to a point where he feels as if he might vomit all over himself. 

She is gone now, as silently as mysteriously as she initially came, and no trace of her remains in the messy room. At least, that's what he thinks until he sits up, cursing his complaining head and gazing at the beautiful red mark on his arm.

She's branded him with it, but she's also left him with a gift, he sees as he glances at the end table. Wrapped up together with a bow on top is a syringe, the bag of white powder, and a spoon. A note rests beneath them, and he picks it up, reading it slowly, struggling through the oncoming stupor to read the curling writing.

_Popped a different kind of cherry last night, didn't I?_

_Remember, with this gift comes great sacrifice._

_Use it well._

And as he turned his head to look at the first shot, already cooked up and sitting inside the syringe, he knows she's right.


	5. Cottaging

Title: Cottaging

Author: mao

Disclaimer: Velvet Goldmine characters, likenesses, and original storylines belong to Todd Haynes and all the other lovely people who put their name on this project. Whee, and thanks to them - I'm making no cash off this, and want naught more than the feedback I rarely get. 

Author's Notes: This is something [rather depressing, to be honest], that popped into my head this afternoon. Sorry to say, it's really not for the faint of heart. Writing it made me cry.

Warnings: Drug use, language, mildly graphic gay sex, reflections on both gay and heterosexual sex, self-abuse.

Dedication: for Katy, though she won't see it for ages yet.

***

**the sick and tired refrain of everyday is branding itself into you**

**discouragement defined by all the times when everything just falls apart**

**how do we find a little piece of heaven**

**when no one understands at this point**

**that a handful of redemption's all we need**

1983 

He sits in the bar, reflecting on his agent. He's the very icon of a rock star - dressed in black leather, hair glowing white in the dim lighting, hollows under the eyeliner smudged on his lower lids. He holds a cigarette in one hand - one after another, chainsmoking, lighting each from the end of the last - and a drink in the other. The combination of the scotch and the endless cigarettes, which he pulls from a quickly wilting pack on the table, makes his voice sound rougher than usual. 

He's trying to focus on what his agent has to say, but he's distracted by a man at the bar. Armani suit, slicked back hair, and glancing at him every so often. Curt isn't usually in joints this nice - he sticks to the signifigantly less classy dives down by the Village, where drinks are cheaper and men easier to find. But since his agent is paying, he's here among the suits and high-class whores in their Gucci shoes and off-rack dresses. The man in the Armani - a pinstripe, he notes - gives him a slight wink, then turns to the bartender.

Bingo.

He returns his attention to the agent. 

"So you see, Curt, if we could just update your image a bit, get you a new backing band, maybe make a couple connections between you and someone popular in the tabloids or something, we could have you up there within the year," his agent is a balding, fat man with a wife and two kids, a secretary with a bun in the oven, and a prostitute in a beaded gown eyeing him from across the room. "If we started with some spandex, a new band, maybe some music with a synthesizer-"

This catches his attention and keeps it.

"No fuckin' spandex, no synthesizers, and no fuckin' way am I gettin' a new band," he growls, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth. He takes a swig of his scotch, grimaces, and glances back at the man in the Armani. He's still there, talking jovially to one of the sequined ladies but sending frequent glances to Curt in the mirror. 

"I just think we need to get the popular market to relate to you again," the agent whines a bit, then pauses. 

"I don't give a fuck about the popular market. You said if I wrote some decent songs, you'd see what we could do. I wrote them, and you've got them. What d'you think?" He can feel himself starting to come down, getting that feeling where he's jittery inside his skin and his teeth ache with every noise around him. 

"Frankly..." the agent pauses, looks at the table. Then he speaks again, and it's the worst thing Curt could hear. "They're terrible, Curt. I think you need to go into rehab or something. You're too strung out to write well right now." Curt's silent, staring at the top of the table. He can't believe he's hearing this. Rehab? Him? But everything's ok; he's making it all work out. "Think it over; the label's prepared to pay for everything if you'll do it. I'll call tomorrow." 

The agent gets up and is gone. Curt's staring at the table, trying not to think, to not feel for one long minute, to just go numb. There's really no making it all fit, no way to handle coming down and the idea of going into rehab, of being told he's washed up.

He can't handle this now. He downs the rest of his scotch, and stubs out his cigarette butt. He looks up just in time to see the Armani man glancing at him, and he tosses a wink over. The pansy smiles ever so slightly, and Curt goes into autopilot - this part he's done a thousand times before. 

He waits another few minutes, smokes one casual cigarette halfway down, then stands and walks over to the bar. The Armani looks him up and down obviously, a nihilistic smirk on his face, nodding to the leather pants draped from Curt's emaciated hips. "Hello. Haven't seen you here before. Buy you a drink?"

A nod from Curt. "Beer," he orders. "I don't care, something imported." He's done this so many times, but he's trying his hardest not to rush it along and fuck it up. Focus, Curt, focus. He makes the obligatory small-talk, is careful to make those little eye movements that hold more insinuation than his words are capable of. 

In bare minutes, they've euphamised to the point of being prepared. They know the price and the service, and Curt sets his empty beer bottle down, fortified but desparate to hurry up and get out. He needs to get the cash and get to the dealer, and get rid of this before the stomachache sets in and the constipation releases its hold. 

The man in the Armani begins talking to another one of the painted ladies and Curt, desparate to get it all overwith, slinks off to the bathroom, swishing just a bit to keep the man in the Armani's eyes on him, and hating himself for the undulation of every step.

His leather pants are sticky around his ankles - it could be the heat of creeping Indian Summer, or it could be the various fluids being spilled and exchanged. It could be sweat, or it could be something more, but he's too distracted to know or care. He's bent over, bare ass exposed like it has been so many times, with a nameless man sodomizing it, fresh dollar bills stuffed in Curt's pockets. He presses his hands into the wall, his head lowered in defeat and legs spread around the toilet so the pansy behind him can fuck him as hard as he wants.

Which clearly, he's noticing, gritting his teeth, is quite hard. 

He tries not to think of the pinstriped jacket hung neatly over the door of the tiny stall, or of the sounds of the Armani man grunting as he slams ruthlessly into Curt's ass, again and again. He tries not to think of the way his teeth are chattering inside themselves, threating to fall out, screaming, onto the floor of the stall; of the way his nose is clogging up and he's starting to feel a bit fluey about the sinuses; about how tomorrow he'll barely be able to move after this pounding.

He looks down at the dollars in his trouser pockets, thick pale green in the fold of the black leather around. He keeps his feet planted, letting the syringes and little baggies of china white and mexican clay float in his mind. Tries to remember those things, and why he is here, and not think of what he is doing. 


End file.
